Patients’ safety in health care should
be the priority rather than profits when it comes to safety or profits.
However, the trend is “for-profits” in health care that neglects unprofitable
patients. Patients’ safety cannot be compromised as a cost savings measure. The
message is not only for “for-profits” health care professionals but also for “not-for-profits”
health care professionals. Research shows that hospital care quality is lacking
universally in all countries. Cost containment strategies in health care have
been the norm in the healthcare industry and patients’ safety should not be
lost sight of, in the process. Some of the common measures which may appear
insignificant are reduction in the duration of hospital stay and reduction in
the number of care providers such as substitution of professional nurses with
health care assistants.
Fewer trained staff and more intensive
interventions point to possible deterioration of quality of care. These
concerns have resulted in the introduction of regulations such as minimum
staffing mandates for hospital nurses in many countries as reported by the
World Health Organisation. Yet, respondents in research studies especially
nurses have declared quality of care deficits, high nurse burnout, job
dissatisfaction for the reasons that the hospitals they are employed in do not
give priority to fair quality of care. The studies suggests that staffing
accounts for a major portion of health care expenditure and cost containing
strategies have negative consequences for quality of care. Health care
organisations with good work environments and better professional nurse
staffing result in more satisfied patients and nurses and evidence of better
quality and safety of care as evidenced by patient satisfaction surveys.
Apart from staffing and good working
environment in health care enterprises/facilities, there are many ways in which
cost cutting attempts are hidden at the cost of patients’ safety. Medication safety issues that can be cited are:
Low cost medicine instead of high quality medicine and medications with side
effects. Avoidance of essential drugs to avoid costs at patient’s risk.
Avoidance of essential surgeries in acute conditions. Avoidance of patient care
facilities such as lifts and ramps for old age and disabled patients in health
care enterprises. Or for that matter,otherwise healthy young patients are weak
while sick.
Therefore,
an efficient health care system is the one that does not compromise on patient
safety under the pretext of cost efficiency. There may be genuine cases of high
cost wherein Governments should step in by providing subsidy to health care
enterprises especially in the matter of hospital buildings infrastructure and
equipments aimed at patients’ safety.
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